As it’s only a matter of time before female bishops are consecrated in the
Church of England, Jemima Thackray argues that the new guy at Lambeth
Palace needs to be a feminist at heart.

These days, almost all executive teams or job shortlists will include at least one woman. Amongst the six Metropolitan police commissioners there is one woman; four out of 22 cabinet ministers are female; and even the committee tasked with selecting the new Anglican leader (the Crown Nominations Commission) has ensured thatthree of the 16 voting individuals are women. Let’s hope this is more than mere tokenism.

The issue of whether to consecrate women bishops hasdogged the beleaguered Rowan Williamsthroughout his tenure and will be lying in wait for his replacement: one of his very first tasks will be managing the fallout from the General Synod’s final vote on the matter in November.

With the reformers poised for victory, it’s fairly certain that the new Archbishop will sooner or later welcome the first lucky lady to join the 99 men in the House of Bishops. The candidate favoured by the progressive churchwoman then, is the one willing to make life as easy as possible for the said ‘bishopess’ when she arrives; the one prepared to overhaul an Episcopal system designed by men for men.

This probably rules out the Bishop of London, then. Richard Chartres is said to be lukewarm about women entering the clergy let alone the Episcopate. Most of the other candidates are reportedly happy with the idea of women bishops, and yet when questioned on the subject several remain conspicuously silent, some shroud their views in diplomacy or theology, others (like John Sentamu) caveat their supposed enthusiasm with cautious remarks about how things would work “in practice” for female bishops.

Fortunately for feminists of faith, the man said to be the bookies’ frontrunner, Justin Welby, has come out unambiguously as being “strongly in favour of women as bishops”. And he has other attributes to recommend him to those of us who want to see women flourishing in every role within the Church: at a sprightly 56 years of age, he is one of the younger candidates, and, having spent most of his working life as an oil executive in the ‘real world’, he may know a thing or two about promoting equal opportunity in a male-dominated workplace.

Rt Rev Justin Welby, Bishop of Durham, a 56-year-old former oil company executive, is seen as the front-runner

Some may criticise his lack of church leadership experience (he’s only been in post as Bishop of Durham for a year), but this may give him a fresh perspective on a highly contentious and politicised issue. His precious little church experience has indeed been precious though, having visited Nigeria numerous times working towards peace and reconciliation between feuding Muslim and Christian militia groups. What better preparation for tackling some of the most deep-rooted disagreements at the heart of the Anglican Communion?

One of the other candidates, Christopher Cocksworth, in discussing the conflicts within the Church has claimed rather fancifully that, “What is attractive about the Church of England is that we don't try to cover up our differences." Justin Welby obviously hasn’t had time to put on the rose-tinted glasses; he sees more clearly what the endless brawling and bickering actually looks like to the outside world: “So often when we get into these discussions we end up saying not only is my opponent wrong but they’re subhuman in some way, and that is absolutely unacceptable in every possible way. We have to hold on to the essential dignity of every human being because they are made in the image of God. The Bible basically says love your enemies and love one another [...] there aren’t a lot of people left who we shouldn’t be loving and we haven’t been very good at that.”

If Welby is to take up residence at Lambeth Palace, we hope that this would be his approach to women in the Church – that he would encourage us all to see past gender to people’s essential humanity. As the apostle Paul said, ‘There is neither [...]male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus’, and in this spirit the Church should search simply for the gifts which distinguish a person for leadership regardless of their sex. Given that the Church possesses such a golden piece of egalitarian doctrine as this, the saddest thing about this debate is that we have to have it at all.

Jemima Thackray is a freelance writer and trainee chaplain in the city of Winchester.